My great great aunt Ada Champion Crespigny (1848-1927) saved family letters. Her collection was passed on to her nephew, my great grandfather, Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny (1882-1952). Among them is a letter he wrote as a boy from Eurambeen East near Beaufort, Victoria, where he was staying with his Aunt Rose for Christmas: My dear Grannie, Papa, Auntie Ada and Auntie Vi Thank you so much for all the beautiful presents you sent me yesterday. 

Family history is an engrossing hobby, a fascinating challenge to trace relationships, and an opportunity to discover how a family has experienced historical events. I am fortunate that quite a few of my forebears and their relatives were also interested in family history, sufficiently interested to write it down. Several of them published books including  Helen Hudson née  Hughes (1915 – 2005) …

I have a family connection with a Victorian sheep station, Eurambeen, sixty kilometers from my home town, Ballarat, and 9 kilometers west of Beaufort. Its first owners were George Beggs (1817 - 1879) and his partner Humphrey Grattan, who bought the property about 1855. In 1859 George's older brother Francis Beggs (1812-1880) bought Grattan’s share of the property, and went into partnership with his younger brother.

The Sovereign Hill Museums Association in Ballarat has more than 150 000 objects, most concerned, directly or indirectly, with the history of the discovery and exploitation of the region's gold. Yesterday I visited the museum to view a sample of what are known as the Beggs Papers, donated to it in 1978. The archive, which fills 30 boxes, is composed of documents, letters, commercial correspondence, invoices, receipts, and ledgers of the Beggs estate and sheep-grazing business at Beaufort, thirty miles to the west of Ballarat.

My grandparents Kathleen Cudmore (1908-2013) and Geoff de Crespigny (1907-1966) were married in 1933. They had one son, my father Rafe. On Christmas Day 1965 Geoff became ill with a brain tumour. He died in February 1966 at the age of 58. On 30 March 1967, at a quiet ceremony in Box Hill, Melbourne, Kathleen married George Symes. The wedding breakfast was held at the…

Six hundred and ten years ago an English army under King Henry V defeated a French army at the famous Battle of Agincourt. In November 1414 an expedition to invade France was announced in the English parliament, and although negotiations for peace were being held, parliament agreed that the king could continue to prepare his expedition. Peace negotiations failed and an English army of some 10,000 men was assembled at Southampton.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the French and Spanish Naval fleets combined forces. On 21 October 1805, the Royal Navy under the command of Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson intercepted the enemy fleet off Cape Trafalgar, on the south-west coast of Spain. The allied fleet lost 22 of its 33 ships, while the smaller British fleet of 27 ships lost none. Nelson…

World War 1 Australian troopships, often designated 'HMAT', 'His Majesty's Australian Transport' were requisitioned merchant navy vessels put into service carrying troops to and from Europe. One of these was SS Themistocles, a British passenger and refrigerated cargo ship, built for the Aberdeen Line and launched in Ireland in 1910. In 1914 the Royal Navy chartered Themistocles as the troop ship HMT…

On 28 July 1916 His Majesty's Australian Transport 'Themistocles' departed Port Melbourne for England with 1500 troops. Most were reinforcements: the nineteenth reinforcements for each of the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth battalions, the fourteenth reinforcements of the 21st and 22nd battalions, the thirteenth reinforcements for the 24th battalion, and reinforcements for the 2nd and 3rd Pioneers and the 4th Light Horse.

In Melbourne on 13 December 1915 my husband Greg’s grandfather, Cecil Young (1898-1975) enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. Just seventeen years five months old, he gave his age to the recruitment officer as eighteen years five months.  Cecil had tried to enlist five months earlier on 13 July 1915 claiming he was eighteen years old. He was rejected. The…

A year ago as part of the series All About That Place 2024, Pacific Edition, I gave a presentation about how a small Australian town remembered the First World War. When on 4 August 1914 Great Britain declared war on Germany, Joseph Cook, the Australian Prime Minister, proclaimed that 'If the Old Country is at war, so are we’.  

Helen Maud (known as Nellie), the daughter of Wentworth Cavenagh and Ellen Jane Mainwaring, was born on 9 August 1877 in Kensington, South Australia, the eighth of their ten children. She was my great great aunt. At the time of her birth Nellie's father was a member of the South Australian House of Assembly. He owned a farm near Adelaide and was a partner in a wheat and land agency business.

Captain John Orfeur portrait from about 1730 now in the possession of a 4th great grandson A guest post by my cousin Diana Beckett Captain Orfeur’s youngest daughter Catherine married Mathew Cavenagh in 1761. The information below is based on the extensive research of Lt. Col. Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh, (WOC) second son of General Sir Orfeur Cavenagh. The original document is in the possession of WOC’s granddaughter.

My fourth great grandmother was an Irishwoman, Catherine Hyde (Orfeur) Cavenagh (abt.1747-1814), the youngest of the three daughters of John Orfeur and Juliana Hyde (Palliser) Orfeur.  John Orfeur was an English army captain. John Orfeur married Julianna Hyde Palliser on April 12, 1732 in Kilmokea, County Wexford, the daughter of an English army officer who had settled in Wexford. Around 1740 John Orfeur settled on land he had bought at at Drillingstown, between Wexford and Waterford, County Wexford.

James Gordon Cavenagh, my third great grandfather, was born about 1766 in Inishannon, County Cork, Ireland, son of Matthew Cavenagh (1738 - 1819) and Catherine Hyde (Orfeur) Cavenagh (~1746 - 1814). He was the third and oldest surviving son of their fifteen children. He was apprenticed to an apothecary in Wexford named Wigram. On completing his studies Cavenagh obtained his diploma from the…

August is Family History Month in Australia and New Zealand. Every year, to celebrate it, the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations (AFFHO) organises lectures and events and other activities. This year I was invited to talk, in the final session, on the subject of 'blogging for family history'. The theme for this year's Month was "Family History: a lasting legacy"; I talked about blogging as a way of creating an integrated body of knowledge and handing it on to succeeding generations.

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt is a photo of a picnic. I though I would repost A picnic in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, photos from an outing of my father-in-law's family about 1924. My father-in-law, Peter Young

Recently I have been writing about those of my forebears and relatives who were caught up in the American Revolutionary War. This started me thinking about my other ancestors living at the same time, 250 years ago. I have identified 170 ancestors of my husband Greg and myself who were alive in 1775. Thirty-four were children under 14 years old; 136 were adults.

Stephen Dana, my second cousin seven times removed, was born on 9 June 1740 in Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. His parents were Benjamin Dana (1689-1751), a shipmaster, and Anne Francis. Benjamin Dana served several times as a selectman, a member of the local government board of government. Stephen was the eighth of their nine children. When he was ten years old his father Benjamin died and it was decided that Stephen should train as a carpenter.

John Stocking Chauncy (1751-1777), my third cousin seven times removed, fought against the British in the American War of Independence. He was killed, a prisoner of war, after he had surrendered. John Chauncy was born on 21 August 1751 in Middletown, Middlesex, Connecticut Colony, the eldest of six children of Nathaniel Chauncey and Mary Easton. He enlisted on 22 March 1777 with the First Troop of Colonel Sheldon's Light…

Gordon Skelly (1741 - 1771), one of my sixth great grandfathers, was a Captain of the Royal Navy. In June 1758 Skelly saw action at the Siege of Louisbourg and at the Capture of Quebec in September 1759. He kept a journal from 1757 to 1759, which is now of considerable interest to historical collectors. It was sold in 2003 for $US141,900.

On 4 July 2026 it will be 250 years since the first Independence Day. For that anniversary I am gathering stories of people in my family who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Edward Mainwaring (1744-1803), my first cousin seven times removed, was born in 1744 in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England. He was the oldest of three sons of an attorney at law, Benjamin Mainwaring  (1719–1782).

The Battle of Lexington, 19 April 1775, Oil on canvas by William Barns Wollen, 1910. National Army Museum, London. Retrieved through Wikimedia Commons. On the night of 18 April 1775 British troops …

In 1769 Thomas Carpmeal (c.1741-1807) was appointed a constable by John Fielding (1721-1780) JP, of Bow Street Magistrates' Court. It was not a full-time position, and Carpmeal combined his policing duties with running a tavern in Broad Court, nearby. By his appointment Carpmeal became a Bow Street Runner, a member of London's first professional police force, which had been formed less than twenty years previously by John Fielding and his half-brother and fellow…

Here's some more about Catapodi the forger, who I mentioned in my recent posts about John Roberts, alias Colin Reculist, forger and Sarah Best transported for stealing a cotton counterpane value 5 shillings. 'Colourful character' doesn't begin to describe him. Born in Greece in about 1753, Peter Catapodi emigrated to London, where in 1775 he married an English woman named…